Even after an uninspired loss to the Green Bay Packers on Thanksgiving Day, the Detroit Lions would have taken an 8-3 record going into December if you offered them that heading into the season. But the issues over the last two or three games since the bye, from turnovers to across the board struggles defensively, are set to bite them in the playoffs when/if they get there.
Some extra time before playing the New Orleans Saints in Week 13 should be broadly helpful to the Lions as they prepare and reset for the final six games. They just played three games over a 12-day span, as they always do around the Thanksgiving game, but these last three games have been down to the wire and a mix of exciting and draining.
The sky is not falling for the Lions, but they do need to find fixes for some key things. With the trade deadline passed, the players they have are the players they'll have for the rest of the season, for better or worse. Bruce Irvin should make his Lions' debut against the Saints, however notable an addition he'll prove to be for a lagging pass rush at this point in his career.
The mini-bye week, well-timed as it may be even though the actual bye just happened a few weeks ago, is another evaluation point for the Lions' coaches. Who should be playing more, or playing less? Are there players who might perform better in a different role, or deployed in a different way? That's not to say every decision in those regards will prove to be right, but some little shakeups could be in order as they try to lock down a divisional title.
After the dismal loss to the Packers, these three Lions players have a strong case for being benched.
3 Detroit Lions who should be benched after the Thanksgiving Day loss to the Packers
3. DE Charles Harris
To be entirely fair (or unfair?) to Harris, he has practically already been benched. Since being a healthy scratch in Week 7, he has played 10, 18, 13 and 13 defensive snaps respectively in the last four games. Over that span, as in the entirety of the four games, he has three total tackles, no tackles for loss, no sacks and no quarterback hits.
With the attention Aidan Hutchinson gets on one side, the Lions' other edge rushers are gettting and should be benefitting from plenty of 1-on-1 matchups. Coverage issues have not helped the Lions get home on the pass rush, and that is a mix of on-field struggles and Aaron Glenn's lack of good scheming to marry pressure concepts and coverage.
By comparison Julian Okwara, who was a healthy scratch on Thanksgiving and started the season on IR, has more sacks than Harris (2.0 to 1.5) in four fewer games and far fewer snaps (78 to 281). The balance there still seems wrong, even as Harris has played way less than he did early in the season.
Harris' breakthrough in his first season as a Lion (7.5 sacks in 2021) has proven to be a fluke for a guy who was a first-round bust beforehand. He is definitely in his final stretch as a Lion, before he tries to keep his career going elsewhere, and maybe he should be on the sideline as a healthy scratch a few more times over the final six games. Bruce Irvin and/or Julian Okwara should take his snaps.
2. CB Jerry Jacobs
Jacobs had a rough start this season, then he turned it around for a few games (see two interceptions against the Packers in Week 4, and another against the Carolina Panthers in Week 5). But he has not really stood out since, and the loss in the rematch against the Packers looks like a low-point.
According to Pro Football Focus (h/t to Kyle Meinke of MLive), Packers quarterback Jordan Love targeted Jacobs nine times on Thanksgiving Day. That was nearly twice as much as anyone else, among Love's 32 pass attempts, and eight of those targets were completed for a total of 101 yards. Jacobs was the second-worst graded Lions' defensive player in the game (40.6 overall grade), and he's now PFF's 77th-ranked cornerback for the season (pending the rest of Week 12 of course).
Ideally, free agent signing Emmanuel Moseley would have been the other starting cornerback for the Lions opposite Cameron Sutton this year. But it was not to be, with a second surgery on the knee he tore the ACL in last season, then an additional hamstring injury and finally tearing his other ACL two snaps into his Lions' debut.
So Jacobs, as solid as he had been over his first two seasons, won and has kept the starting job practically by default. Will Harris is a far worse player than Jacobs, and nowhere near starter-caliber, Undrafted rookie Steven Gilmore has played in three games, with just two defensive snaps. Khalil Dorsey is fine in his role on special teams, but starter-level snaps as an outside cornerback would be a heck of a step up.
So, if only for lack of better or more proven options, Jacobs will not be benched and he'll be left to figure it out moving forward. But he surely would be benched if there were another viable option, even it could be argued if he deserves to be benched or not.
1. WR Josh Reynolds
To be fair to Reynolds, an injury revelation from back during the bye week, courtesy of the Detroit Free Press' Dave Birkett, points to the possibility he is not near 100 percent healthy. He was on the injury report heading into Week 5 with a groin injury, but has not shown up on any injury reports since.
Per Birkett, back in early-November.
Detroit Lions' Josh Reynolds ranks 3rd in the NFL in yards per catch and has not missed a game despite tearing an adductor muscle off the bone."
Reynolds had a touchdown catch on Thanksgiving Day, but it was his fourth straight game with less than 20 receiving yards. His snap share did drop a bit (64 percent), in line with Jameson Williams and Kalif Raymond playing a bit more than usual, but Reynolds still played more raw snaps (however narrowly) than Williams (54 to 53).
Much of Raymond's production against the Packers in Week 12 (a season-high 90 yards, on five catches) came when Green Bay was playing softer coverage with a two-score lead. But there's a solid case that "Leaf" should play more, and Reynolds not producing big plays like he was earlier in the season has left a void in the Lions' offense. Williams can certainly fill some of that void too, and it would be nice to see more from him as he stacks good games.
Reynolds' toughness to play through an adductor muscle that was torn off the bone is admirable, and his coaches and teammates have surely noticed. But for that reason or any other(s), he's not producing like he was early in the season. The Lions have options to at least reduce his snaps, if not give him a game or two off to fully heal if he (presumably) hasn't.
"Benching" might be too dramatic a word regarding what the Lions should do with Reynolds going forward. But he definitely fits the bill as someone worthy of being benched, for production and health reasons alone.